


Home

by Winklepicker



Series: Ryde Ramblings [2]
Category: Kylux adjacents - Fandom, Logan Lucky (2017), Never Let Me Go (2010)
Genre: Clydney, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Not sure what to call this ship/pool noodle, Ryde, kylux adjacent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 09:17:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20636765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winklepicker/pseuds/Winklepicker
Summary: Rodney wonders what home is while he wanders around home.





	Home

That floorboard, there, was the one that made the popping sound. It didn’t creak once it popped but it wasn’t worth the risk. Rodney stepped to the side of that board and onto the silent one that would deliver him safely to the one that made only a small creak just as long as you stepped off it quickly and got yourself onto the kitchen tiles. From there it was smooth sailing to get breakfast sizzling.

He’d been awake for hours, mind dashing itself to pieces with too many thoughts to harness. One of those thoughts was how strangely comforting the weight of Clyde’s arm was across his chest. Another thought was that he could last a while longer without going to the loo if only he could shift Clyde’s knee so that it wasn’t pressing on his bladder.

If he turned his head to his right, Rodney could see the very reason he hadn’t moved. And that reason was Clyde’s sleeping face, smooshed on his pillow, with a lock of soft hair waving in and out on the gentle breeze of his breath.

Rodney relaxed. His shoulders, his stomach, his neck, his jaw. It wasn’t floating away that terrified him but the fear of drowning in his own head. Clyde wasn’t his rock, he wasn’t an anchor. He was a life vest. And right now, in the annoying green glow of the old clock radio, his sleeping face drew Rodney up and away from the deep and the dark.

And in that sickly green glow, in that room that never warmed up properly in winter, on that bed that sagged in the middle, Rodney smiled. Filled with a near unbearable amount of love and… and… urine. Good god he had to get up. He had to get up now. Like _now_ now. 

It was impossible to displace Clyde’s limbs while he was asleep. They weighed at least four times more than they did when he was awake. Rodney learned that early and he’d learned that good when he had tried moving Clyde’s arm once only to have it drop like girder onto his neck. 

The best method was the side-slide-shuffle. It required strong and pliant buttocks, and sneaky-beaky shoulder blades, and with a clench-wiggle here and a squinch-stretch there, Rodney was free. He was balanced with one hand and foot on the floor and the others still on the bed, sure, but Clyde was still sleeping like a bunny and that’s all that mattered.

_Make yourself at home_, Clyde had said all those months ago. He tried, really he did. But it was at times like these, wandering alone in the small hours with too much silence and too much time to think, that he felt like a guest. Rodney had no idea what home was, or what it felt like. Maybe this was it. Or maybe he’d find it soon. 

He brushed his knuckles over Clyde’s new hand as he passed, sleek and black, sitting on the dresser. Touched the pads of his fingers to those cold ones, as tenderly as if it was flesh and blood. As if it wasn’t on the other side of the room to the actual flesh and blood. Rodney didn’t think, he just did it. Maybe that’s what home was.

He left his piss in the toilet. It was too loud to flush in the night, though he’d never care if Clyde did. So he “let it mellow” like he’d been told. He’d stopped running to flush it as soon as Clyde was awake because, “I was a soldier, Gingercream-pie. A bowl full of your piss is like paradise compared to latrine duty. And there ain’t nothing wrong with saving water either.” Maybe home was an unflushed toilet.

He’d finally fallen asleep again on the sofa. The nightmares were back. On and off. For now they were on. “I _want_ to wake up for you,” Clyde had whispered to him the night before, when he had stopped shaking, and had stopped screaming, and when he’d cried his fifteenth and a half, “sorry”. The sofa gave his brain permission to sleep. He was far enough away that he could dream-thrash without fear of disturbing Clyde. 

He woke again, with late morning light streaming through the window and a blanket tucked around him that he had not fallen asleep with. 

The floorboard journey to their bedroom was an easy one. Two guaranteed silent steps on that one, a dodge to the right three boards over, and then the all clear. 

Clyde was sprawled on his back, a pillow tucked under his right arm and his stump tucked inside. It got cold sometimes. Sometimes—after Rodney had cleaned it well, wiped the day from the scarred flesh and so gently applied lotion—he would kiss the end of that arm and tuck it under his shirt to keep it warm. It made Clyde giggle and that was… maybe that was home.

Let him sleep some more, his saviour, his life vest. The only alarm today would be the smell of the bacon he would fry to a crisp. He stepped over the floorboard that made the popping sound, tiptoed along the good one, and then skip-hopped from the one that made the small creak onto the silent tiles beyond. 

Maybe this was what home was. Somewhere he knew every song the boards sang, every pop in the rafters and stain on the walls. Where the man he loved wrapped him up warm without waking him, when he himself had crept away to sleep so that he wouldn’t wake up the man he loved—a beautiful folly. Where he could leave the loo unflushed, where he could burp and fart and spit in the shower. Where he could dance and hum while cooking bacon. Where he could hear the floor pop and turn to see his sleepy giant totter toward him, scratching his belly, sniffing at the air, with morning wood in his briefs and a hand in his hair. Yes, yes. Rodney’s heart ba-dumped and agreed. This was exactly what home was.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a bit of a free flowing writing exercise to try to, y'know, remember how to write.


End file.
